PHILADELPHIA — The Nets have seemingly been searching for rock bottom all season long.
They found it Friday night.
Evan Turner’s driving layup as time expired gave the 76ers — which came into the game losers of seven straight and 19 of their last 23 — a 121-120 overtime win over the Nets (9-17) in front of 15,267 inside Wells Fargo Center.
“We’ve got to be up for everybody,” said Paul Pierce after finishing with 24 points, 10 rebounds and five assists. “It’s not like we’re walking giants. We are bottom feeders right now just like Philadelphia, so we’ve got to be up for everybody.
“We don’t have the luxury to come in here and coast and feel like we can come into the fourth quarter and turn it up. Those are the great teams that understand that and understand the moment. We are not there yet.”
The Nets couldn’t be farther from there after falling to the Sixers (8-19), a team that after a 3-0 start was playing like the team everyone expected them to be before the season began, including when they were destroyed by 36 points in Brooklyn Monday night. Now, it gets tougher as the Nets have the Pacers (twice), Spurs and Thunder on tap in four of their next six games.
After getting killed at the 3-point line and on the boards in Wednesday’s home loss to the Wizards, this time the Nets were beaten at the rim and on the glass.
Despite having a massive size advantage at several positions, particularly when Brook Lopez and Andray Blatche were on the floor together, the Nets were again crushed on the glass and were outrebounded 49-36 — including 12-5 on the offensive glass. They also gave up 66 points in the paint on 33-for-52 shooting, while only scoring 30 on 15-for-33 shooting themselves.
“We can’t rebound the ball and we can’t protect the paint,” coach Jason Kidd said of his team, which is now 28th in the NBA in rebounds per game. “So those are the things we have to work on.”
Those are just some of the things the Nets have to work on, as they still sit two games out of the final playoff spot in the pathetic Eastern Conference, and in 11th place overall — far, far away from anywhere this $189 million roster was expected to be when this season began.
The two teams battled throughout, with the lead never getting above three points either way through the final six minutes of the fourth quarter. Both had their chances to win the game in regulation, with the Nets taking a 107-106 lead with 1:06 remaining on a pair of Alan Anderson free throws before Turner made one of two free throws to tie the game with 50.4 seconds left.
After Anderson and Michael Carter-Williams traded missed layups, the Nets had the ball with a chance to win with 5.5 seconds left, but Deron Williams (17 points, 14 assists) missed a jumper at the top of the key, sending it to overtime. The two teams went back-and-forth in the extra session, with Pierce eventually hitting a wide open 3-pointer to give the Nets a 120-119 lead with 16.9 seconds remaining.
Turner, who led Philadelphia with 29 points, then drove to the rim from the top of the key, only to get blocked by Anderson out of bounds with 6.3 seconds left. On the ensuing in-bounds pass, Turner got the ball back at the top of the key and drove to rim, where his layup went over Lopez’s outstretched arm settled into the basket.
“I was looking like, ‘Where did the ball go?’ … I thought it came out the other side, and thankfully it went in,” Turner said. “God definitely looked out for me on that one.”
After Turner’s game winner, the Nets trudged off the court, in search of answers for their struggles that, nearly two months into the season, haven’t shown signs of dissipating.
“I don’t think anybody expected this,” Williams said. “[We] Keep talking about that. I don’t think anybody could imagine us having the record that we have right now, talking about the things that we’re having to talk about every game.
“It’s baffling to me. At some point we have to just say enough is enough.”
If this loss wasn’t that point for the Nets, there may not be one.